People in Gary, Indiana, have every reason to ask why their lights stayed out so long

A storm that had the strength of a tornado tore through Gary, Indiana, the morning of Aug. 11. The prolonged power outage that followed was not only a weather emergency, it was a test of utility accountability, infrastructure readiness and the appropriate prioritization of vulnerable communities when systems fail. For the most part, the people in charge failed.

Immediately after the storm, Gary was an unsightly mess, with trees blocking streets, branches covering yards, downed power lines, dead traffic signals and uprooted century-old trees. As it became clear that the resultant power outage would last far beyond a few days, city officials, neighbors, faith leaders and community organizations stepped in with food, dry ice, transportation, wellness checks and other basic support. At that point, many Gary residents thought power would return “any day,” but Northern Indiana Public Service Co., Gary’s sole utility provider, appeared too slow to match the scale and urgency of the crisis.

Public officials, including Gov. Mike Braun, Mayor Eddie Melton and NIPSCO representatives, provided periodic updates, but the first clear public acknowledgment that this would be a prolonged outage did not come until Aug. 14, four days after the storm. Even that message came with the reassurance: an estimate that power would be restored in no more than 10 days.

By the city’s 14th day without power, residents were at their limits. Families searched for nonperishable food, refrigeration for medicine, reliable transportation and clear answers about when electricity would return.

The power had been mostly restored by the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 27, when NIPSCO reported that the number of customers without power was slightly more than 100.

The hardiness of our electrical grid is an ongoing concern across the country. Whether it’s summer storms, winter storms or blackouts caused by increased energy consumption, at any given time some community in our country seems to be suffering without power. Indeed, more than 100,000 residents of Memphis, Tennessee, lost power over the weekend. Memphis, like Gary, is predominantly Black, and as Capital B reported Monday, “High minority areas are four times as likely to suffer a blackout compared to predominantly white areas, and, specifically, being Black is associated with nearly two times higher odds of experiencing an outage lasting 24 consecutive hours than white households.”

As the power stayed off in Gary, the issue was no longer only storm damage, but the collision of aging infrastructure, delayed communications and concentrated vulnerability. A third of Gary’s residents live in poverty, many households depend on SNAP benefits, and many residents are elderly, medically fragile or without the resources to relocate temporarily. Ours is also a legacy city with older trees, older homes and older utility systems — conditions that should have made rapid response and clear communication more urgent, not less.

Gary isn’t the only city that has those issues, which means that what happened here should be of national concern.

Gary residents have endured tough times before. Deindustrialization, white flight, disinvestment and the long-term consequences of the drug war have all harmed a city that had nearly 200,000 residents at its peak and now has fewer than 70,000. Perhaps that history helps explains why the alarm was not sounded sooner, or why residents seemed conditioned to persevere through hardship. But a two-week outage is not normal, and resignation should never be mistaken for resilience. While residents in neighboring communities demanded answers quickly, many of Gary’s most vulnerable residents continued to wait.

In calling for an investigation Monday, Braun said in a statement, “NIPSCO is a monopoly utility that Hoosiers pay every month with the expectation that it will use its considerable resources to maintain its system, prepare for severe weather and restore service as quickly as possible when disaster strikes.” He added, “NIPSCO has failed to keep its end of the bargain.”

That investigation must ask whether NIPSCO made restoring power in majority-Black Gary less of a priority than restoring power in other communities in its service area. Even some media executives should ask themselves why they didn’t cover the power outage sooner.

No matter when or where they happen, power outages are not just inconveniences. They have the potential to have a life-or-death impact on elderly residents, people relying on medical equipment and families without money for generators, hotels or replacement food.

For a while now, the city’s leaders, including Melton, have been thoughtful and intentional in positioning the city for a comeback, but recovery planning must now include climate resilience as a core requirement.

Indeed, that needs to be a mandate for cities and counties across our country.

Because of the increasing impact of climate change, residents should prepare for more frequent and severe weather, but the burden cannot fall on households alone. Our utility companies need to better prepare, and our public officials need to do the same. Nobody should be left without power. Nor should anybody be left wondering if they’re without power because they and their neighborhoods may not be considered as valuable.

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